Thrones made of Silence

The host led us to a long obsidian table glistening beneath a cascade of enchanted light. Name cards were written in blood-red ink, our seats predetermined. I was placed to the left of the host.

Nathan's name followed, safely at a polite human distance. Across from us, empty chairs waited strategically, like an invitation to war.

I barely sat before a cool voice filled my ear.

"You dress like vengeance."

I didn't need to look up.

Adam had taken the seat opposite mine.

I inhaled slowly, keeping my expression unreadable. "And you arrive like a threat."

His mouth curved, faint and sharp. "Do threats usually watch you like this?"

I let my gaze meet his again—slow, deliberate. "Only the ones who want to be punished."

His jaw ticked.

Kathy slid into the seat beside him, her wine-colored nails draped over his wrist. "I told you she'd wear silver," she purred. "You always liked women who looked like they belonged to another world."

Adam didn't respond. His eyes hadn't left mine.

The host clinked his glass gently, and conversation resumed across the hall like nothing had shifted. But everything had.

I lowered my voice. "You're playing a game, Adam."

He leaned in just a fraction. "So are you."

"The only difference," I said, lifting my glass, "is I don't pretend mine isn't dangerous."

⸻

The dinner was a theater of elegance.

Crystal goblets. Obsidian plates. Polished silver that had never touched mortal food. Every course was artfully plated and almost entirely untouched by the vampires present.

Nathan murmured politely to the woman on his left, blissfully unaware of the ancient bloodlines watching us.

I kept my posture regal, my smile practiced, and my presence quiet but searing.

Adam didn't speak.

But I could feel him.

Every glance. Every shift. Every restrained breath.

When dessert arrived, something rose-gold and dripping in celestial honey, I reached for the spoon at the same moment he did.

Our fingers brushed.

Just a whisper of contact.

And suddenly the world around us blurred.

For a single second, I wasn't in a ballroom.

I was back in the ruins of Devana.

Smoke curling through ash. Stars bleeding in the sky. His hand—just like now—reaching for mine.

Then I blinked.

And the moment shattered.

Adam's eyes were wide, breath caught. The host looked amused, almost expectant.

"You felt it," I whispered.

He didn't deny it.

Kathy frowned. "What was that?"

Neither of us answered.

⸻

Later, the music shifted—haunting violins giving way to a slower rhythm, coaxing couples toward the grand marble floor.

Nathan stood and extended his hand. "Dance with me?"

I hesitated.

Across the room, Adam was rising too, with Kathy already at his side.

My blood roared.

But I didn't look away from Adam.

Not once.

The ballroom became a battlefield of glances.

Because I could feel Adam's eyes on my spine.

Could feel Kathy's manicured fingers tightening on his arm.

Nathan's hand was steady at my waist, but it was the way he looked at me—earnest, open, utterly unarmed—that made my shoulders relax ever so slightly.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," he murmured near my ear as we swayed. "But I figured if I look confident and don't step on your dress, I might survive this night."

I smiled, just a small tug at the corner of my mouth.

But then he leaned closer, his hand brushing a bit higher on my back—light, unthreatening, but far too intimate for the room we were in.

"And if I do step on your dress," he added in a conspiratorial whisper, "you can tell everyone you brought me as a blood sacrifice."

I blinked and then let out a soft, unexpected laugh. Low and real. It slipped past my guard before I could stop it.

It wasn't loud.

But it echoed across the ballroom like a shot.

Adam looked up.

And froze.

His glass hovered halfway to his lips.

I didn't have to look to feel the change in the air. His presence, always sharp at the edges, now felt serrated. I caught it in the flicker of Kathy's eyes as she followed his gaze, in the ripple of silence that passed through the western side of the floor like a current.

And then he moved. Not after the song ended. Not politely. Not with warning.

He was halfway across the room before I could exhale, parting guests like a shadow with purpose.

Nathan straightened beside me, just as Adam closed in.

"May I cut in?" he asked, his voice like ice slicing silk.

Nathan blinked. "Uh…"

"She's already said yes," Adam said, offering his hand without looking at me.

I took it. Not because I wanted to. But because I wanted to see if we'd survive it.

The moment Adam's hand closed around mine, the room ceased to exist.

I didn't glance at Nathan.

Didn't glance at Kathy.

Didn't need to.

Adam pulled me into the center of the floor without a word, his movements smooth but sharp like a blade dancing to music only it could hear.

One hand settled at my waist. The other held mine just tight enough to remind me this was not a gentle thing.

This was a claim.

I didn't flinch. Didn't falter.

I lifted my chin, held his gaze, and stepped into the rhythm.

⸻

The music slowed, something ancient and full of longing. A violin echoed softly in the corners of the ballroom, weaving a spell no one dared to interrupt.

We moved together flawlessly. But there was nothing polite about it.

His palm burned through the silk at my back. My fingers curled tighter around his shoulder than they should have. Every sway of my hips against his was deliberate. A war.

"You laughed," he murmured near my ear.

My lips curled. "I did."

"With him."

"Hmm."

His jaw clenched. "Don't do that again."

"Why?" I asked sweetly. "Does it make you jealous?"

He exhaled slowly through his nose. "You have no idea."

"Don't I?"

I shifted closer, just enough for my pendant to graze his chest. A small flare of heat passed between us.

He sucked in a sharp breath. "Careful, Rosaline."

"Or what?" I whispered. "You'll embarrass yourself in front of your fiancée?"

His hand tightened on my waist. Not painfully. Possessively.

Our foreheads nearly touched now. Every step, every pivot was a promise not to fall apart.

"You walk into this place," he rasped, "draped in silver like sin, laughing with another man, and expect me not to burn for it?"

"I expected you to control yourself."

"I can't," he said.

His voice broke on it.

The mask cracked—only for a second—but it was enough.

I saw it.

The ache behind his fury. The hunger behind the restraint.

The devastation of two thousand years of waiting and wanting and silence.

I saw it. And I broke with it.

⸻

My hand slid up his chest, over the fastened buttons, resting at the base of his throat. His pulse jumped beneath my fingers.

The music faded around us. Or maybe I just stopped hearing it.

He leaned down, lips brushing the edge of my jaw. "I'm not a good man, Rose."

"I'm not asking you to be."

"I want to take you away from all of this."

"You already did," I whispered.

His breath caught.

For a moment, I thought he might kiss me.

Right there, in front of them all.

His fingers curled at my back like he was deciding if he could afford to lose everything for one more taste.

But then—

The air around him shifted.

His hand trembled.

A flicker of red shimmered in his eyes.

And the pendant at my back pulsed, reacting to him, to us, to something buried and breaking.

He blinked fast. Looked down at his hands.

Then dropped mine like it burned.

Without a word, he turned and walked off the floor.

Not slow.

Not careful.

Urgent.

⸻

He disappeared through a set of side doors into the hall, leaving only silence in his wake.

I stood alone in the center of the ballroom, every eye on me, every whisper already forming.

But I didn't chase him.

Not yet.

Because if he was falling apart—

I needed to know why.

_____________

Unseen by either of them, another figure stood cloaked in shadow, half-forgotten in the alcove just before the older wing of the estate, where the stone turned darker and the air colder.

He hadn't meant to follow.

But then again, when Adam Black left a ballroom mid-dance, looking ready to tear the world apart, some things begged to be noticed.

He tilted his head slightly, lips curling around the rim of his untouched wineglass. The soft glow of a floating candelabra flickered over his angular features, sharpening the glint in his storm-grey eyes.

He hadn't meant to spy.

But what a show it had been.

From across the ballroom, he'd seen the look on Adam's face. The kind that broke treaties and carved kingdoms.

And then her—the girl in silver with flame in her spine and forgotten magic in her eyes.

Rosaline Ainsworth.

His gaze narrowed.

There were rumors about her. Whispers trailing through immortal courts. A name resurfacing in forgotten languages. A bloodline that should've died with the Devana kingdom but hadn't.

And now she stood just beyond the archway, her back straight, her heels clicking against the stone like they were weapons.

Lucien sipped his wine slowly.

Interesting.

He'd seen Adam in battle. In boardrooms. In blood trials. He'd never seen him lose composure.

Until tonight.

He wasn't the type to meddle in romance. But weakness…? Weakness could be exploited.

And Adam had just revealed his.

He turned on his heel, disappearing into the crowd with the practiced elegance of someone who never made ripples, just waves, when it suited him.